The government of the Philippines today has passed the troubling Cybercrime Prevention Act. The Act covers a range of offenses, butâas we wrote last monthâis particularly problematic because of a libel provision that criminalizes anonymous online criticism.
In addition to criminalizing online libel, Section 19 of the Act would also allow the countryâs Department of Justice to block access to âcomputer dataâ that is in violation of the Act; in other words, a website hosting criminally libelous speech could be shut down without a court order.